Wednesday, October 9, 2013

MUSIC REVIEW OF THE DAY: LINDI ORTEGA - TIN STAR

Toronto's Ortega is sure putting them out at a fine rate, her third album in three years, and another corker. Her country-rockabilly sound, her compelling voice, her excellent songwriting, it all gets better each time, too. Living in Nashville has brought out a competitive fire in her, and several songs here, including the title track, are about struggling to make it in the dog-eat-songwriter scene there. Singing for the nobody's, the ones with "a busted string and a broken guitar", hoping for the break, she sees herself more akin to them than the big names, "like an old tin star, beat up and rusty/lost in the shining stars of Nashville, Tennessee."

That's one of the tear-jerkes, and she does a fine job at them, but where she really soars are the rockabilly numbers. Ortega has a hitch in her voice, a delightful one, and when she leans back to really belt into a song, it's breath-taking. Think Dolly Parton sounding just a little less perky, a little more indie. Opening track Hard As This is a great tell-him-off song, mad at a lover for messing with her heart: "If you need time, here's a clock/you can sit alone at night and listen to it tick and tock/If it stops, wind it up/I'll be somewhere givin' up on you." Gypsy Child is a bit of biography, tracing a singer moving from Toronto to Nashville, her voice soaring over a delicious twangy guitar. All These Cats is the raunchiest of them all, about the haters trying to run her out of the singer game, which she answers with all the power of Wanda Jackson, advising them "I ain't gonna look, I ain't gonna listen, I'm just gonna continue on my mission." Please do, three great albums in three years, that's my kind of singer.

About Me

A veteran Canadian broadcaster, Bob Mersereau specializes in popular music writing. He's been with CBC TV and Radio since 1982, and regularly reports on the arts. Bob is the author of the Top 100 Canadian Albums, a national best-seller published in 2007, and The Top 100 Canadian Singles, published in September 2010, both from Goose Lane Editions. His music column appears each week on CBC Radio 1 in New Brunswick, on the program Shift, and he has written music articles and reviews for such publications as The Coast Magazine, The Telegraph Journal, and The Globe and Mail. He's also the recipient of the 2014 Stompin' Tom Award from the East Coast Music Association.